$124 trillion is expected to change hands by 2048, and for many families the hardest part is not the money itself. It is the paperwork, the silence, and the assumptions that sit around it. As baby boomers age, estate disputes are rising along with the transfer of homes, retirement accounts, brokerage assets and family businesses. Court data cited by the National Center for State Courts showed probate and estate cases entering state courts rose about 32% between 2020 and 2024 across 39 states. What sounds like a once-in-a-generation financial windfall can look very different inside a family: an outdated beneficiary form, an ex-spouse still listed on a 401(k), a second marriage that changed expectations, or adult siblings trying to agree on what to do with a house none of them really wants.
“Traditionally, wealth moves from one spouse to the survivor and then to the kids,” said Scott Rahn, attorney and founding partner at RMO LLP. “But now, things are complicated with blended families and non-traditional families.” That complication is increasingly ordinary. More than half of Americans have been or will be part of a blended family, and stepchildren are not automatic heirs unless they have been legally adopted or specifically named in estate documents. Unmarried partners can face similar exclusions. In those households, inheritance disputes are often less about greed than about mismatched expectations between legal rules and lived family life.
The family home adds another layer of complexity. For many households outside the wealthiest tier, a large share of inherited wealth arrives as a house rather than cash. That can mean property taxes, insurance, repairs and months of sorting possessions before any sale is even possible. Adult children may inherit value on paper while absorbing immediate costs in real life. A house also resists easy division. One sibling may want to keep it, another may need a sale, and a third may live too far away to help manage it. Grief, nostalgia and logistics tend to turn a financial asset into a slow family negotiation, especially when the property reflects an older way of living that no longer fits the heirs’ lives.
Many heirs do not feel ready for that moment. In one recent survey, 72% of Americans said they did not feel confident managing a large financial windfall. Another weak point is conversation. A survey from RBC Wealth Management cited in the main reporting found two-thirds of givers procrastinate on wealth-transfer discussions, even though uncertainty is often what turns an inheritance into a dispute.
There are practical reasons these arguments become expensive. Probate can stretch on for months and,according to AARP, often costs around $1,500, with total expenses sometimes estimated at 4% to 7% of an estate’s value. Fights over wills, trusts or fiduciary duties can push costs much higher. By then, the inheritance is no longer just being divided; it is being depleted.
Tax rules and account design can sharpen the stakes. Inherited assets may benefit from a step-up in basis, which can reduce capital gains taxes when heirs sell. But those advantages are easily overshadowed when beneficiary designations are outdated or estate plans are too rigid to account for remarriages, divorces, births, deaths and estrangements. “The single most important thing that people don’t do is to have a family meeting or sit down to talk about these issues,” Rahn said.
That advice keeps surfacing because the legal documents do only part of the work. Families that update beneficiaries, review estate plans regularly and explain decisions clearly tend to leave behind fewer mysteries. In a transfer this large, money is not the only thing being handed down. So are unfinished conversations.
